After over 25 years of practice I have learned the process of resolving individual cases, nderstanding the law and how it applies to the facts in your case. I make myself available to answer my clients questions whenever they arise.I look forward to doing everything possible to obtain or protect your immigration status.

Obama to Dems: Boehner will pass immigration reform in 2014

President Obama has told Senate
Democrats he expects Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to pass immigration reform
this year, defying predictions the issue is dead for 2014.

Obama believes Republicans will feel
politically vulnerable, if they fail to advance the issue, a high priority
among Hispanic voters, according to Democratic senators who met with the
president this week.

Obama sees immigration reform as a
source for optimism in what has otherwise shaped up as a tough year for
Democrats.

“He predicted the House would pass
something this year,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who attended the meeting.

Obama cautioned senators to brace
themselves for difficult negotiations with House Republicans later this year.

“He said we’re then all going to have a
challenging conversation,” Kaine added. “He said it was more likely than not
the House would do something.”

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the lead
sponsor of the Senate-passed immigration bill, described Obama as “cautiously
optimistic” after the meeting.

Boehner has made several recent moves giving
Obama and his Democratic allies hope, such as hiring Rebecca Tallent to serve
as his new director of immigration policy. She previously worked for Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.), a co-sponsor of the Senate immigration bill.

Boehner plans to unveil a set of Republican
principles for immigration reform before Obama’s Jan. 28 State of the Union
address.

He and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
told House colleagues at a closed-door meeting early this month immigration reform
would be a priority in 2014.

A spokesman for Boehner declined to comment.

A Senate Democratic aide said House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.) would take the lead on the trickiest element of reform,
legislation to legalize an estimated 11 million illegal residents.

“The path will likely be a legalization bill
that offers a path to citizenship through existing channels,” said the aide.

Senior Republicans, such as Rep. Darrell Issa
(Calif.) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), are working on plans to grant
legalization through existing channels, such as H-1B visas, agricultural worker
permits and family connections.

Issa, however, expressed pessimism earlier this
year that immigration reform could pass before 2015 because of the partisan
atmosphere in Congress.

House Republicans have signaled they would not
support any proposal that creates a special path to citizenship for millions of
illegal residents. House conservatives rejected the Senate bill because it
includes a special 13-year pathway.

Left-leaning advocates of immigration reform say
a proposal that would use existing processes to grant citizenship to a greater
number of immigrants could serve as a viable alternative.

“Yes, with the provision that the existing
channels are large enough,” said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of
the League of United Latin American Citizens.

“The analogy would be, if you have a crowded
store, and the fire marshal says you have to create a new exit or enlarge the
existing one, but the bottom line is everyone has to get out,” he said.

Boehner has stipulated the House would not act
on a comprehensive bill but instead pass a series of measures.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a co-sponsor of the
Senate bill, says enacting a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants is
far from a slam dunk, but he believes the House could build up momentum by
passing a series of piecemeal bills.

Wilkes said that would be acceptable to
proponents of comprehensive reform, as long as the House addresses each of the
areas covered by the Senate legislation.

“These things may sound arbitrary, but they give
different members in tough districts the ability to vote against different
parts of immigration reform,” he said. “If some members need to take a walk on
certain aspects of it, House leaders will let them do it.”

Obama expects these bills would add up to a
series of reforms that could then be negotiated with the Senate.

“He feels good. He thinks we’re going to be able
to get something on immigration,” said a Democratic senator who met with Obama
at the White House Wednesday. “He just thinks that Republicans are not going to
want to be hanging out on that.”

The lawmaker requested anonymity to discuss the
private meeting.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas), the
former chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, thinks the GOP could
probably succeed in the 2014 election without passing immigration reform but
would face problems in 2016.

“We can win in 2014 without resolving it. We
can’t win in 2016 without resolving it,” he told National Journal.